I Bificus

By Bif Naked

From one of Canada’s most original musical artists comes a new memoir about life, love, loss and triumph

Bif Naked was born in secret to a teenager living in India, the product of a Canadian girl and a British boy. She was rejected by both families, hidden away in a mental hospital and adopted by missionaries and then moved to North America. She began what she recalls with ironic humour as a “charmed life.” Targeted by girl gangs and facing other abusive situations, she escaped this early life by joining a punk rock band and leaving on tour, where she married the drummer and hit a downward spiral that found her on the floor of a Vancouver drug den.

Through it all, her creative personality and unstoppable humour were her weapons of self-defence. Bif showcased her life’s journey in tattoo ink across her body and, with her unique ability to transform her true life stories into song lyrics, she found her voice as a solo artist, started her own record company and at twenty-three years of age became an international recording artist. Throughout her remarkable career, armed with her singular talent and instantly identifiable look, Bif would captivate the imagination of audiences and media alike, releasing nine albums and twenty-one videos. She embarked on seemingly endless international tours, several feature films and multiple television roles, only to be struck down with breast cancer at the age of 37. Bif would discover her passion for advocacy, as a triumphant survivor and someone who helps others first. This is Bif Naked’s story so far . . .

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Apr 19, 2016
• ISBN: 9781443419741

Bif Naked

BIF NAKED was born in India and raised in the United States and Canada, spending many of her formative years in Winnipeg. After fronting the underground bands Gorilla Gorilla and Chrome Dog, Bif became a prominent alternative artist, performer and songwriter. Her striking image, friendly personality and powerful live performances have had her appearing in concerts and festivals around the world. She has also appeared on film and TV, on shows such as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Bif lives in Vancouver, B.C. Follow her on Twitter @bifnaked.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

I HAVE BEEN WHAT MY FATHER REFERS TO AS A knucklehead for as long as I can remember. I was a born performer, and luckily for me, my parents recognized, encouraged, and celebrated this. I was enrolled in ballet, piano, art, and theatre lessons throughout my childhood, so perhaps it was only natural for me to find freedom from the strictness of home in music and, as it turned out, particularly in the subjective genre of punk. This, of course, was to my parents’ surprise, having raised me on hymns from both Hindu and Christian traditions. Little did they know that I was headed into a successful career spanning more than twenty-five years as a rock vocalist and would be able to thread and weave my art and passion for poetry into the cloth of this work, creating a life of intensity and joy as a female straight-edge skate punk in a world of hardcore male mentors and heroes. Dodging death by violence, misadventure, cancer, and chronic heartache, I remain committed to this life of gratitude and total optimism because of my limitless sense of humour, my yoga practice, and my complete faith in humanity, still undaunted and unchanged. I love life and I love all the shenanigans it provides.

ONE

Miss Proud Canadian

NOTHING EVER MATCHES ONE’S PRIDE IN ONE’S heritage. I should know. I am a proud Canadian.

I am an Indian-born, born-abroad Canadian (or like I enjoy saying, I was born a broad). I have been these two things for as long as my memory goes back. I learned my patriotism from my father—or at the very least, how to brag about it. He was an American who gave up his citizenship to become Canadian. My mother never did, and remained a Minnesota girl.

Shireen, my sister, was Indian, and because Heather was my parents’ natural child, she was American. I was the lone Canadian in the family. My parents made a point my entire life of introducing me to anyone and everyone as their Canuck. They identified me as this, and I have self-identified as a Canadian every single day I have been alive. I can’t imagine being anything else, no matter where I live.

Canada is my first love, or maybe my true love—or maybe Pierre Trudeau actually was. He was the prime minister when I was born and remained so until I was in my adolescence. Like many Canadian citizens, I had a crush on him. He was charismatic and good-looking, he had an unbeatable demeanour, and he had sex appeal. I wanted to be able to speak perfect French in case I ever had the chance to meet him. French was my best subject in school, second only to boys. Bien sûr.

Pierre Trudeau was worldly, chased women, knew artists, laureates, and writers, and was demonstrative. Trudeau gave people the finger, which was forbidden, like cussing, by my parents, and it only endeared him to me more. He was like a rebel political rock star, and I absolutely loved him. I used to daydream that I would live in Montreal like Pierre and Irving Layton did.

Irving was another crush of mine, and as a young teenager I read his books in bed and masturbated quietly in the dark. I collected his books feverishly—finding one was like finding treasure, or a gift from a secret lover. I was such a dreamer, and was happiest fantasizing that some lovely man read Irving Layton’s poetry to me while I lounged in the bath. And this was to happen every night for the rest of my life, or at least for a week in some filthy hotel in the Pigalle district of Paris. A man who was a younger version of artist-director Julian Schnabel would be perfect. I read that Schnabel had a bathtub installed in the middle of his bedroom so he could watch his beautiful wife bathe. This idea has burned into my mind and as a result prevented any man from ever winning me over completely if his idea of romance is anything less. I was a pure romantic and remain so to this day.

Because my father so loved Canada, he defected from America, much to the chagrin of his family. He loved Canada even more than I do. He used to joke that God talked to him through the CBC, and although I didn’t believe this as a child, I believe it now. My father loved to pontificate, debate, and bestow his expertise through his constant advice giving and preaching of grand ideologies. I get my knack for this from him. My manager, Peter Karroll, nicknamed me Bif Clavin, after the great know-it-all Cliff Clavin, from the TV show Cheers. I can convince anyone that I am an expert on almost any subject, no matter what. And if I make a statement with enough conviction, I often convince myself that it is true.

I am greatly influenced by my sweet, quiet mother. She is not the type of person to bring attention to herself. A saint, and a perfect example of kindness, grace, and femininity, she lives for the happiness of others. She would make a great Buddhist. She does make a great Christian, and I’m sure the Hindus and Krishnas would love to have her. Trust me, I’m Bif Clavin, I know these things.

Jeanette McCracken, my mother, was born in Hibbing, Minnesota, and had two siblings who were both ten years her senior. She went to high school with Bob Dylan but was too shy to say hello to him, and besides, in high school he wasn’t famous yet. My mother says that, as a child, she was rarely spoken to by her parents. Her father worked all day, and when he came home to their rural house retreated to his room, coming out only for meals with the family. Most of the meals were eaten in silence. I wonder a lot about my mom’s childhood in Hibbing. It must have been a lonely existence.

My maternal grandmother, Selena, was always talkative around us grandkids, especially after my grandfather passed away. Selena had a laugh that I still sometimes hear in my sleep all these years later, shrill yet beautiful, like scream-laughing, and once you heard it, you couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity and joy of the noise. She smelled of roses, and all her bathroom soaps were roses, which I hated—they stunk. It’s funny, though, that now I wear rose-scented perfumes, embracing my childhood memories and the family love the scent holds for me.

My grandfather Oscar was a railway engineer who drove the trains in the open-pit iron-ore mines—steam engines, then diesels, he drove them all. When he was younger he was a firefighter, one of the extension-ladder guys. But then he came home one night from work and didn’t speak for several days, not a word. He finally confessed to Selena that several firefighters had been killed in a fire. He decided then and there that he needed to change jobs. My grandfather never had alcohol in the home—when Oscar was a small boy, his father had let the family down because of alcohol. I don’t think my grandfather ever laughed; he was a quiet, thoughtful, serious man. As young children, we were afraid of the strange bump on his ear; we often stared at it. It was a growth that he had had since he was little, and he told us that God put it there so he would never be lost: it was such a distinctive, identifying mark that people who saw it would know for sure he was Oscar.

My father, Dr. Ken Torbert, loved to tell stories of his and his three brothers’ boyhood shenanigans. They were preacher’s kids getting into preacher’s kid mischief. He grew up loud, was never shy or quiet, completely the opposite of my mother. I believe that I am the perfect blend of them both, though this is entirely environmental, as I have zero genetic links to them.

My parents were good Methodist children, both members of the Wesley Foundation University of Minnesota, and thoroughly involved in the United Methodist Church groups. They met at university. My mother was studying nursing and working as a nurse’s aide in a Masonic hospital, where she dealt exclusively with cancer patients. She loved her studies but quickly realized that she loved the work she was doing with the patients—she was in the trenches with them. She decided she did not want to become a registered nurse and leave what she was doing. It seems a bit odd to me, as her daughter, to be now living an almost parallel experience.

My father’s first year at university was so disappointing for him that he decided to volunteer for the army. He believed that serving in the military was exactly the self-discipline he needed to get serious about his studies. He claimed he needed an attitude adjustment and so set out to give it to himself. He returned to his studies, and after taking all manner of courses, from Spanish to Russian history, finally received his degree, in zoology, and was accepted into dental college.

Zorah Torbert, my father’s mother, was a beautiful woman with blonde curls of hair and little horn-rimmed glasses, as was the style of the day. I can still picture her vividly. We kids sometimes spied on her as she gave herself insulin injections. Every morning, she did the injections on her bed, her dress up, the needle into her blue-mottled leg hanging over the edge of the bed. Her name was Zorah, but my older cousins called her Zorro, and so I did as well. Grandmother Zorro was a lifetime member of the WCTU—the Women’s Christian Temperance Union—and was very much opposed to alcohol or any other intoxicating substance.

My parents were both brought up in homes without alcohol, and they in turn kept it out of their home during their lives together. They were married in 1960 in a small church wedding filled with hope and their faith in God. How they came to decide to embark on a missionary trip to India I will never know for sure, but I believe they were probably just asked and thought it would be a great adventure.

They were extremely interested in and participated in the Civil Rights Movement, and were the only two people to accompany their pastor on the legendary march on Washington, where they heard Dr. Martin Luther King speak to the crowd at the Lincoln Memorial. They sat on the edge of the nearby reflecting pool and dangled their feet into the water as they listened to his words. My dad retold the story often, always marvelling at how positive everyone’s energy was there. My parents both stood behind non-violent protest and encouraged this in others. My dad told me, When we listened to Dr. King, it was so good. The words from his mouth were all you could hear, it was powerful and loving. I just thought, ‘Right on, man! Right on!’

My parents could not have known then that it was such a historic moment. All they knew was that they were united with Dr. King. The Civil Rights Movement continued to inspire and draw them. The year 1965 was a time of great struggle in America, and my parents were deeply involved in the efforts of non-violent activism. There was a call to action—for religious leaders and other citizens to join in another peaceful march for freedom—by none other than Martin Luther King himself.

Activists, including those with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who had been campaigning for African-American voting rights faced abuse, arrest, and much brutality. My dad and eight other men departed immediately for Selma, Alabama. My father was honoured to work with the committees, the young lieutenants, and the other young men, and marched with them from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. He felt privileged and wanted very much to stand with his fellow human beings. He admitted to me later that he was happy to be in solidarity with the marchers but was afraid of the white troopers who called him a white nigger and threatened the protestors.

My dad was afraid for his life, as he knew men had died, some actually murdered by the very law officers and sheriff’s deputies who had sworn to protect. He was trembling inside but he never flinched, and despite what the deputies might do to him, he was not leaving. He just prayed to God.

A few months after their involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, my parents prepared for their trip to India on behalf of the United Methodist Church mission, and which was to include Hindi language studies. Eventually, they embarked on a boat journey across the Atlantic. It took weeks to reach the Indian Ocean. My parents were both seasick during the trip, but it was much worse for my dad, as he also had an allergic reaction to the mangos he ate on the boat. He suffered miserably the entire journey.

Upon arriving in India, my father began teaching at Christian Medical College in Bareilly, a city with a world-renowned mental health facility. To tell someone you were from Bareilly was to be met with riotous laughter and lots of teasing. My parents lived in a house provided for them there. They had a cook, a housekeeper, two dachshunds (Dinah and Schroder), and tiger lilies all over the property. My mother’s nickname was Tiger, after the lily, a contrast with her personality, which was modest and had a quiet loveliness to it always. She primarily helped out at the local nursery and ashram.

My parents’ work in Bareilly meant they were active in their local community, which suited them well, both being idealistic young socialists. Soon, though, they would find themselves the guardians of two small children, with all that entailed.

TWO

Baby Gilmore Out of India

CHILDREN’S BEHAVIOUR IS USUALLY MOTIVATED BY desire. Mine was no different. My constant striving for validation, affection, and love often manifested itself in provocative displays. My birth mother was a provocative child, rumored to be not only uncommonly beautiful but also overly friendly. This overt friendliness ran through my blood too.

My birth mother, Maureen, was pregnant at age fifteen and gave birth to me at age sixteen. Those green saucer eyes of hers got her into trouble, I reckon.

My soon-to-be parents lived in a compound behind a seven-foot-high brick wall; the compound consisted of a hospital, a dental school that was part of a larger dental hospital, a seminary, and their house. The dental school had the latest state-of-the-art dental equipment, so that’s where foreigners from all over India went for dental work. The mission’s dental school saw a lot of patients—Bareilly was only a five- or six-hour drive from New Delhi—many of whom were regulars.

A nurse who worked at the local orphanage reached out to my mom, thinking she might be able to help with a baby who had been brought in. The girl had been surrendered by her family two months earlier and was now deteriorating in health, and not much more than skin and bones. When terrible sores began to threaten the infant’s life, my mother went every day to care for and hold the baby girl. Eventually, my parents took her to their home and began to care for her full time. The baby, named Shireen, recovered and began to thrive.

News of my parents’ new baby girl spread, and the mission was excited for them in their role as new parents. Before long, one of the dental patients, a nurse from Lucknow, asked my parents if they might be interested in taking another baby. She was friends with Dr. Stringham and his wife, the couple running the psych hospital in Lucknow. Their friends were diplomats from Canada whose teenaged daughter was expecting a baby in a few months. They were trying to find a suitable couple willing to adopt this Canadian child. As my dad tells it, he said, Sure, if nobody else wants the baby, we’ll take it. (At this point in the story, my father always laughs.) Dr. Stringham began to correspond with my parents, acting as the contact person between them and the pregnant teenager’s parents. My father and mother never had any direct contact with the Canadian family.

When the time finally came for them to go to New Delhi, my parents were ready with a letter signed by Dr. Stringham on behalf of the birth mother. They went to the Holy Family Hospital as per the arrangement, and attempted to give the letter to the hospital staff, who promptly waved it aside and handed the white baby to the white people. It was 5 a.m.—they had arrived early in an attempt to beat the heat of the day—and they had a long drive back home, so they left with me. They hadn’t signed anything or received any documentation; they just went on their way.

And this is how the adoption process started, with their applying to the Indian courts in Bareilly to legally adopt my sister and me, so that they could return to America with us. Adoption by Christians was not all that accepted in India at that time, as only 3 percent of the population identified as Christians. The courts had difficulty understanding how we came to be in our parents’ care. There was no proper paperwork for me, a Canadian baby in India, no father listed. Good luck with that. My parents should have saved themselves all the stress and just lied. But they were good people and so patiently and painstakingly went through the process.

Shireen and I remained blissfully oblivious to the fact that we were almost seized and taken away from them. We just played under the big wooden desks as my parents pleaded with the judges, trying to explain why they had no proof that we had indeed been handed over to them, other than the agreement letters they had signed for guardianship of us.

India had no real way of dealing with Americans adopting Canadians within its borders, and it was incredibly difficult to get the proper paperwork from the US Department of Immigration once the court finally did give its approval for my parents to bring Shireen and me to the United States based on their intention to adopt. I was finally accepted into the States just two days before we were to depart from India. Many months later, in a South Dakota courthouse, and the adoptions of one brown kid and one white kid from India were granted to the nice Methodist couple.

We moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, my parents still fresh from their mission work, and my mom now pregnant. Before long, Shireen, the eldest daughter, and I were adjusting to our new baby sister, Heather.

I battled ear infections monthly, likely caused by sticking all manner of things in my ears and nose. I had an amazing talent for getting up to things, from wrestling with geese at the man-made lakes of Golden Valley, the suburb of Minneapolis where we lived, to hiding in the church closets during service.

With optimism in their hearts, my parents sought out their next mission from the Church. They were unable to renew their visas to India through the Board of Missions—likely something to do with funding—so they were asked to consider the Congo—there was a possibility of setting up for training for dental therapists in Kinshasa. Half the costs would be paid for by the United Methodist Church mission agency and half by the Congolese government, headed up by good ole Mobutu. The Congo had just produced its first five Congolese dentists. My dad asked these dentists if they might supervise the dental therapists he trained, and he even visited several towns with these brand-new dentists. Although it was becoming increasingly clear that this was no time for foreigners in the Congo to start up some new—and to many there, wacky—dental therapy program, my parents wanted to go to investigate the possibility nevertheless. It is amazing to me now to think that they were seriously considering moving all five of us to sub-Saharan Africa. What a life-changer that would have been.

My little sister was less than a year old when my parents left for the Congo (a fact that, I suspect, causes my mother a lot of hand-wringing to this day), Shireen was three, and I had just turned two. We two older girls stayed with a family who had a daycare in their home, with as many as ten or fifteen kids there every day. We would be staying with this family for the entirety of my parents’ sojourn. Heather stayed with a lovely young couple who could devote their time to a baby.

Breakfast every morning involved all those white kids (I identified myself as an Indian kid like my sister, though the reality was that I was white as well) who attended the daycare standing around my sister and me as we ate our cereal at the kitchen table, still in our pyjamas. They didn’t speak to us. They just stared. I can’t even remember feeling anything at all in response to this early effort to alienate my sister and me (or so it seemed to us), even though we were staying there and they were there just for the day. People trying to alienate us was something we’d battle throughout our childhood years spent at public schools. It was an action built on bigotry, and not helped by the fact that we moved to a new city every couple of years, just like military brats, so that we were always outsiders.

Within months, upon their return from Congo, my parents and the Board of Missions had grown unhappy with each other and mutually agreed to part ways. With only three more weeks of pay coming to him, my father was faced with looking for a new job. So he found an opening in a program in a place a far cry from India and Africa, but exotic nonetheless.

THREE

In the Canadian North

MY PARENTS RETURNED FROM AFRICA AND HAPPILY announced that we were moving to Canada—North of the fifty-third parallel, where the polar bears live. I will never forget their saying this. I was about three years old and I couldn’t wait to see the polar bears.

My father accepted a teaching position at a community college in The Pas, Manitoba. We relocated there in winter. It was so far north that it seemed like it was dark night and day. My poor mother was much less excited about the move than Shireen and I were—I don’t think the Great Northern Tundra was at all appealing to her. She was isolated indoors with three little kids—we girls couldn’t run about outdoors during the northern Canadian winter—in a very cold, very dark, and very lonely little town. We lived in a heated construction trailer, the kind with a central hallway with rooms off to the sides and a small bathroom. We lived there and we ate there and we froze there. We stayed there for several months, until a house was available.

Reviews for I Bificus

[tobinelliott · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love Bif Naked. I've loved her music since forever, I loved her when she was on The Chris Isaak Show, I just think she's awesome.

So, it was a no-brainer that I'd pick up her book.

Sometimes I think it's the curse of the songwriter, that person so used to encapsulating a relationship, or a big emotion in a couple of verses and a chorus, that when it comes time to write it all out in a memoir, they still tend to deal with it quickly.

There's some of that in Bif's narrative. There's times when she relays an absolutely horrifying story...like losing her virginity, or the disillusion of a marriage...and I kept hoping she'd go a little deeper, because it's always a reward to see how someone gets through all that and survives.

Because, goddamn, Bif's a survivor. There's absolutely harrowing chapters on some of the shit she's managed to get through. And it seems that she never crawled through it, but instead, walked through, head held high.

There's a line toward the end of the book that states that Bif has gone through life inviting others to punch her in the face, metaphorically, if not literally. And it's true.

Yet, this is the story of a woman that has never been able to choose the right life-partner, yet has forged amazing relationships with many friends and family. She's never been able to have the children she wanted, but the two chapters on her dogs destroyed me with the love that was evident in every word. She always avoided conflict, yet tackled her cancer with grace and aggression.

Bif is a fascinating woman, and this is her fascinating story.

[cathishaw · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The first time I really registered the name Bif Naked was in 2009. I was doing the Run for the Cure in Kelowna with my friends and colleagues from UBC's Okanagan campus. It was two and a half years since my best friend and sister-in-law had died from breast cancer. I had helped my children write Auntie Nan on their "I'm Running For ..." signs that were pinned to the back of our t-shirts. One of my colleague's partners had written "Bif Naked" on her sign and it gave me a immense amount of joy to see that sign flapping in front of me before she ran out of sight (her pace was far faster than my own). I had no idea Bif was battling the disease but I sent a little prayer of wellness her way.Now I lived in Vancouver for 21 years while Bif was very active in the music scene (1987-2008), so I knew who she was. I think it would be un-Canadian to not recognize her face and music. But that name on the Run for the Cure sign really made her a REAL person to me.She resurfaced in my consciousness three years ago when my daughter, then 15 and in BC Children's Hospital for a week long EEG, found the courage to start talking about her struggle with epilepsy. As she started her @Sandpapersmiles twitter account, Bif was one of the first people to follow Cait and even liked a couple of her Tweets from the hospital. I don't know if Bif's follow or Shred Kelly's was more exciting for Cait.So I knew I wanted to get my hands on Bif's book when it came out. I ordered it as soon as it was available and was thrilled when it was delivered 2 days later (thank you Canada Post!). I was exceptionally surprised and delighted by this memoir.I've read lots of Bif's posts on social media and they are radiant, lyrical and poetic. I wasn't sure I could handle an entire book written in that kind of style. But she didn't do that at all. Instead she wrote with an honest, engaging voice that had me shushing those around me so I could keep reading. I love biographical work but rarely does it engage me like Bif Naked's story did. I was in love with her writing.I was hooked long before I got to her chapter that details her battle with breast cancer, which is an important part of her journey but not THE most important part of her journey. I don't think I've read such a truthful and open account of anyone's life. Not only does the spirit of Bif Naked shine through but even more deeply the sweet, caring spirit of Beth Hopkins radiates in her memoir. And the love and discretion she showers on those around her (she skillfully omits names of anyone who might be uncomfortable with a mention in her book ... something I envy greatly as a co-author of a soon-to-be-released memoir).When I finished reading this book, I really felt connected to Beth/Bif on a spiritual level. A deep happiness filled me that only is replicated by spending time with good, kindred spirits; girlfriends who you can have belly laughs with. This book is written by a generous, giving soul in a honest and loving manner. Bif Naked makes this planet a better place. If I could I would lend you my copy of the book but Cait has already disappeared into her room to devour it so you will just have to go and buy your own copy. You won't be disappointed.